Help, my rooster attacks!

[aafairchild]

Hi,

I am tending to agree with the cull crowd here. That is pretty aggressive for a roo that young. I had 4 at 1 time. 2 I planned to keep all along and the 2 packing peanuts that came with my chicks were up in the air. The 2 extra boys turned out both mean and ugly so off to the freezer they went. My blue wyandotte who is currently the oldest at 8--9 months got into this thing where he would run into us. My hubbie and I took to fluffing up waving our arms and chasing him around the yard every time. He does not mess with us now and will step aside if we move toward him. He is good with girls so I wanted to keep him. My younger plymouth rock roo is a sweetie. He will walk up near you and stop and look and cock his head. I can pick him up and while he is not happy about it, he does not try to hurt me. He squaws in protest until I put him down and then he runs off. Both are happy boys although with only 14 hens they have not yet sorted out who will be the dominant roo. Some thing I can handle as being normal behavior. I get toes pecked often as I walk around in flips and my hens like things the wiggle. Neither of my boys has actually tried to injure me at this point, just a little dominance behavior. I can understand not wanting to eat him, but he is too aggressive to be safe for such a young bird.

Good Luck to you
Alice

 

[quiltchick]

I am not a chicken, or rooster expert.

I have chickens because I really like them, enjoy having them runn around the yard while I am outside. I also love having my friends and their children, wander among them and enjoy them. I try to maintain a happy and healthy flock.

When I started last year I bought 20 chicks and ended up with 2 Roosters. One was a comet and the other- 2 weeks younger- is a Partridge rock. The comet was head man, really took amazing care of the girls. He did chase away the other Rooster from his hens, but no real fights that I ever saw.

As the comet matured he started to become aggressive, as you describe. I started by yelling at him, then at times I waved a stick at him. I then read all I could find on getting along with / handling an aggressive Rooster. The details are all above - how bad the rooster was- and how to fix it--I see all of your experiences were like mine.

I also loved the way he took care of the girls. I knew that he was only doing what he was supposed to. I have never ordered the execution of an animal.

In December- he was 10 months old- he attacked me so swiftly and with such force that to this day my shin has a sore lump. I forget what the Dr said it was. I never saw it coming and do not know what he did to created a golf ball size lump on my shin bone and draw blood through 2 layers of clothing. I was merely waling into the house with a handful of eggs, with the chicks following me looking for a treat. Things changed. I was afraid to turn my birds free if there was a chance of anyone coming over. I actually became afraid- for so far no reason- to go into the coop with him. My family was walking around with sticks, in case. Now he was not an attack bird- just unpredictable.In fact, I often hand fed him However, my little barnyard had changed....

End of story- he is gone! I am so relieved I was able to make the decision to pass him on to a friend who made soup. NO REGRETS!

I am an animal lover, but this was the best decision for me, my family and my chickens. It took me 2 months past the attack to actually eliminate him from my flock, but my advise is do not let a Rooster take away all the pleasure of your chickens!

 

[chickencowranch]

Quote:
So did you get another roo? My roos hasn't seriously attacked anyone here. if he does I will get rid of him and not get another one to replace him.

 

[quiltchick]

No I did not replace him- I received 2 roosters last year when I bought chicks. I had 2 all along. Issue is not to replace the rooster, but not to keep a problem bird. I wanted to allow people into my yard without worrying about them getting hurt - I let my chickens free range all afternoon and never know when someone will stop by. Once out- they will not go back into the coop until dark- not like a dog, just call him and put him in a safe place!

 

[katbriar]

This all seems very frustrating and stressful when you are just trying to enjoy your birds. Bad roosters are bad roosters especially when you have to put in extra work just to enjoy the flock you are working to keep happy.
We should be working toward ridding this behavior from our flocks.

You don't have to put up with it when there are so many good roosters going to stew pots. I wrestled with butchering and eating my excess roosters for a long time. Now I never buy chicken from the store and I've added Muscovy's to my yard so I rarely have to buy any meat. I'm not trying to convince you to eat him but this is a subject that I'm positive a lot of people on here have had to deal with. There are not too many options for mean roosters.. .

Cull cull cull

Here's the thing- ever notice how many people on this site have problems with roosters but don't know how it happened or what to do about it?

If all someone wants to do is as you say "just enjoy your birds" (which I may be interpreting incorrectly as having a hands off approach to dealing with aggressive behavior) many/most roosters will follow their nature and eventually develop the behaviours that people label as "bad rooster". I frequently wonder how many are labeled as "bad" and just given up on and culled that wouldn't have turned out that way for a flock master that knew how to help their birds be respectful of them. My intention was to just give some information that could help the OP whether it's with this rooster or the next. It can be enjoyable to know how to understand chicken behavior and interact with your animals in a way that teaches you both something and doesn't end up with every rooster in the stew pot just because he "turned" mean.

 

[bilder]

Growing up I learned to fight back. If a rooster started to get mean, get mean back at him and teach him who is in charge. I often would catch a rooster in mid-jump as he came at me and toss him across the yard or give them a swift kick into the fence when they charged me. Some learned very quickly not to mess with me, others needed a few extra lessons. We did have to cull some who could never learn who the boss was.

Teach them early on who the real boss of the barnyard is. Some will learn, some will be dinner. That is the way of things.

You do not keep a dog who attacks people, why keep a rooster who does the same?

 

[Kadjain]

Here's the thing- ever notice how many people on this site have problems with roosters but don't know how it happened or what to do about it?

If all someone wants to do is as you say "just enjoy your birds" (which I may be interpreting incorrectly as having a hands off approach to dealing with aggressive behavior) many/most roosters will follow their nature and eventually develop the behaviours that people label as "bad rooster". I frequently wonder how many are labeled as "bad" and just given up on and culled that wouldn't have turned out that way for a flock master that knew how to help their birds be respectful of them. My intention was to just give some information that could help the OP whether it's with this rooster or the next. It can be enjoyable to know how to understand chicken behavior and interact with your animals in a way that teaches you both something and doesn't end up with every rooster in the stew pot just because he "turned" mean.

Huh? I have no idea what you are trying to say? You can teach a rooster to respect you? I don't think so without always having a broom handy! And when that's the case you have taught him nothing. I also raise Gamefowl which are a very old breed. The human aggression has been bred out of true Gamefowl because the handlers do not want to deal with human aggressive roosters. It can be done!

Human aggressive roosters should be culled - period

 

[Tj11]

We have a flock of 60 chooks who free range by day. Recently one of our rir rooster went after me out of the blue it felt natural for me to run straight back at him and he backed down. We've since gotten rid of him as he had started to be really aggressive towards some of the hens and was actually drawing blood. Our whole flock is completely different since we got rid of him the girls are all so much more relaxed and egg production is up. Definitely no regrets. I think if its not in your nature to be able to feel confident in instantly reacting to any bad behaviour then you should definitely get rid of him before he does really serious damage.

 

[chickencowranch]

Quote:
Mine free range all day. My roo isn't a serious problem per say. He does what he's suppose to do. Protect the girls. if he attacked everyone that walks around the yard for no reason. He will be gone. No second guessing.

 

[jackhorn01]

I view my birds as pets also and treat them as such and think highly of them. Although the first time I get spurred or attacked he'll be sucking on a 12 gauge barrel. Just like a mean dog that attacks people and has to be put down. Any pet that will attack people should not be tolerated.